Miki Agrawal

So tonight’s blog post is not about me, not that all of my blogs posts are, but tonight’s reallyis not about me. Though I do think, on same level, all of my blog posts, including this one, say something about me, what’s important to me, and what I value.

I bring this point up to acknowledge that I have been thinking a lot about the title of this blog and realize it has morphed into something potentially different, and “Dating Myself in Durham” may not be the best description for what I am chronicling on this blog. I think all of my posts reveal things I am learning about myself (which is something one learns when dating oneself…), but I am not sure this blog is the best place for the newest content I have been creating. As you, the readers, are along on this journey with me, I wanted to keep you updated on where my head is at.

So, today’s blog post is about Miki Agrawal, an serial social entrepreneur whom I greatly look up to and aspire to be more like. I am writing about her as I was upset to read this article “Thinx Has a New CEO, and Finally, an HR Department” on Racked today that really does an injustice to her and her accomplishments at THINX.

I cannot comment about the negative comments made about Miki in regards to the way she ran THINX or the sexual assault claims against her, but I can comment as an outsider looking in on what I have seen. Note that I also did customer service work remotely for THINX for a brief period when I first moved to North Carolina.

Here are the reasons I LOVE, admire, and aspire to be more like Miki Agrawal:

What the article fails to mention is that Miki built THINX. She is the inventor of the product (period proof panties), and it was her vision that helped create the THINX brand and break the taboo around periods all around the world. Without Miki, I don’t think THINX would exist or be as successful as it is today. When I worked at THINX briefly, THINX could not keep the product in stock and was always selling out. They grew extremely quickly, as if overnight, it seemed. The biggest customer complaint I encountered was people complaining about not getting their orders on time, which was due to THINX not being able to keep stock in long enough to fill all of the orders that kept coming in.

2. What the article also fails to mention is that when Miki was 25 years old, she started her first business, Wild, a wildly successful gluten free pizzeria that has since grown to have two other locations in NYC (West Village, Williamsburg, and Park Slope) and had one location in Las Vegas, which has since closed. The location in Las Vegas came about because Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh reached out to Miki about building a Wild in Las Vegas in partnership with the Downtown Project he was overseeing.

4. Or her next book Disrupt-Her, slated to come out this year, which is “a personal development manifesto that explores the good, bad, and ugly for women who want to disrupt social norms, remove the filters that are holding them back, and design more successful and meaningful professional and personal lives.”

5. Nor does it mention the unconventional ways she handled setbacks at THINX like sending an e-mail with a personal video message apologizing to THINX’s customers for the late shipments for their orders. She did a lot of good at THINX, and I don’t think she is getting credit for that.

6. Lastly, it also does not mention she was just on HGTV for her other company Tushy

7.or that Tushy gives one family access to clean community toilets with every purchase of a Tushy.

8. which is similar to how THINX partnered with AFRIpads in Uganda to so that for every pair of THINX underwear sold, THINX donated enough money to make seven reusable AFRIpads. THINX is starting Thinx Global Girls Clubs in which they’ve created a 6-month curriculum that teaches girls about their bodies, menstrual products, self-defense, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy.

I can’t speak to the sexual assault allegations against her as I never worked in the THINX office, met her, or interacted with her.

I can say from her Instagram presence, she does seem very comfortable with her body and sharing it openly and publicly, which is another thing I respect and admire her for. I see Miki’s nipples on Instagram stories at least once daily, and I like how it seems she is trying to break taboos around the human body and normalize nakedness, which is something I am in favor of, i.e. people being more comfortable in their skin and seeing more flesh/the human body being a socially acceptable thing.

On that same note, Miki is not my boss and I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable seeing her, as my boss, naked at work because she was changing publicly, nor do I think it is acceptable for a person to grab another person’s breast without consent. Whether or not she committed the sexual assault charges she is being accused of or not, I cannot say, but I can say she is someone I really look up to because of her creativity, determination, passion, and ability to forge her own path.